AP 0248: How Do You Avoid Information Overload?

AskPat 248 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 248 of AskPat, the very first episode of the AskPat Podcast this year. I hope you're having an amazing day and ready to start off this year on the right foot, and to help us out, we got a great question today from Khan, but I also want to thank today's sponsor, which is Lynda.com, an amazing website.

You have to understand what it's all about because it can totally help you out this year. You can kickstart your new year and challenge yourself to learn something new with a free 10-day trial to Lynda.com. This is a new offer just for 2015 when you sign up at Lynda.com. It's L-Y-N-D-A.com/askpat. You get unlimited access to every course on Lynda. From everything from web training or web development. Photography, visual design, Excel, WordPress, Photoshop, all types of software, and all their courses are taught by experts, and new courses are added to the site every week. I use it myself, and you've got to check it out. So whether you want to set new financial goals, find work-life balance, invest in a new hobby, ask your boss for a raise, find a new job, or improve upon your current skills, Lynda.com/askpat is for you. So check it out. 10-day free trial.

Awesome. Let's get to today's question from Khan.

Khan: Hi, Pat. My name is Khan. First of all, thank you so much for all the wonderful work you do. I really appreciate the help you offer on a daily basis. This is simply super cool and awesome. My question is there are so many blogs and great names in the publishing world. It is difficult to follow all of them as a result of information overload. So how to override the information overload, and what blogs do you recommend as absolutely essential to follow? Thanks, Pat, and have a great day.

Pat Flynn: Khan, thank you so much for the question, and congratulations on being the first question featured here on AskPat. For those of you listening for the first time, anybody who gets their question featured gets a free t-shirt. Actually, Khan's over in the U.K., so we are sending it to him free of charge, and all of you out there, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show this year, all you have to do is go to AskPat.com, and you can ask right there on that page using the widget from Speakpipe.com. Awesome.

Khan, this is a great question to start off the year because all of us are incredibly motivated, and we know that there are places out there, websites, blogs, resources, people, tools, services we can use to help us to achieve our goals. However, there is that tipping point. A critical point where you can be really, really flooded with too much information, which is what you called information overload, and it's really good that you are thinking about this now, and this was something I've experienced, and something I've experienced over and over and over again, and it's hard. It's hard to deal with especially because there is the thing called FOMO. F-O-M-O, which a lot of us know as “Fear of Missing Out,” and it's really hard when there are people out there and blogs and websites that are providing value. You feel like you have to read those things because you don't want to miss out on what might potentially be the next big thing for you. Or even sometimes that one, small little tip that you read on a blog or listen to in a podcast that can help you move forward, and you don't want to miss that. So you subscribe to everybody. You listen to every podcast. You read every single blog post.

And then what happens? You get all the information, but then you don't have time to do anything. And then you get bogged down because you are getting pulled in every single direction, trying to work on this thing, and then you read this new thing and you try to do that, but then you didn't finish that old thing, and then there's other things that come out. I mean, really, the big thing that has been my focus lately is prioritization and focusing on what I need to work on next. There's a great book by Gary Keller called The One Thing which essentially tells you, and I would recommend that book for everyone. It was one of my top books in 2014. It's called The One Thing. Very simple concept, but he goes really deep into the effects and the consequence of not focusing on one thing at a time, and the big idea is you really need to put all your effort and focus and even learning and have that all involved and be involved with that next task. That next project that you're working on, and within that next project, that next thing on your to do list, and it's really important to do that, or else you're just going to get nothing done. And as I always say, even 90% of something . . . If something is only 90% done, it's 0% done to the end user.

You know, you've worked all that time, and you can't . . . you don't want to waste that time that you put in, and you have to finish and follow through. Even though it might fail, at least you're giving it a chance by going all the way to completion, and you have to finish and focus on that one thing, and whatever content is being published out there in whatever medium, I would only recommend consuming it if it has to do with your next one thing. And if not, then put it aside. This is a big thing that I learned in 2014 was using Evernote to, when I do come across great content, I don't ignore it. I put it away in a specific folder, which has a very specific name, so that I know I can come back to it later when it is time. So this is called “just in time” learning, and that's the best way to avoid information overload. Only consume information that will help you complete your next task, and until then, put those things aside.

Now, if you are an Evernote user like me, you might be wondering well, how do I easily do that? Well, there's a really cool browser extension called Evernote Web Clipper, and if you get involved with that, that will make it easy for you to go to any website or maybe you find something on your Twitter stream or there's something that a lot of people are talking about that seems to be new, but again, it's not involved with that next thing you have to complete, but you want to save it for later. You just visit that page, you click on your little icon for the web Evernote clipper, and it'll save it to any specific folder that you choose, and then you'll be able to organize this information in very short time. So that when it is time to come back, and then you are in the topic of Pinterest, for example, which I've never been involved with, but I do have a folder in Evernote, and that folder in Evernote, which is a Pinterest folder, is there for collecting all that information that I could potentially read down the road when it is time for me to get into Pinterest. And so having that there for you is really, really nice not only to help clear your thoughts now to make way for what you need to do, but so that you have a place to go to when it's time, and you don't have to then go fumble and search around for those things. Those things are already there. So you acknowledge that those things are there, but you put them aside because there's something more important to work on as well.

Now, this begs the question well, how many blogs do you subscribe to or podcasts do you listen to? And I only listen to just a few and probably the same amount of blogs, and the reason for such a little number is because A, I'm just trying to get rid of all that information overload and helping myself by not really having a place where I'm always checking for new stuff and tempted to look at new things, but these people who I have subscribed to via the iTunes app for podcasts and for my RSS feeds and the blogs that I subscribe to, those are people who I know come out with stuff that's directly relevant to what I do. And actually, it's funny because one of the sites I subscribe to is a food truck blog, not my own, and that's because I want to stay up to date and connected with that person and what they're doing in that industry, and that's something that's on top of my mind right because FoodTruckr.com, a niche site that I have, is really close to the top of the priority list for me right. And another one is related to architecture because I'm still involved in the LEED exam and that whole side of things, and I want to stay up to date.

So if I'm going to recommend anybody that you should follow, I wouldn't recommend a single person. Not even me. I wouldn't even recommend following me, if you know that the stuff that I come out with isn't going to help you for what you need to figure out right now. Honestly speaking, you need to follow the people who are directly related to what it is that you're up to and doing right now. So I can't tell you, Khan, exactly who that is. I don't know what site you have or what niche you're in, but follow the people that are going to be able to give you the advice, to give you the information, the news, whatever. Whatever would be important to you so that you can then provide information to your own audience. You're getting value from these places so that you can even better give value back to your audience, whether that's directly related to this blog that you follow or not.

And so I hope that makes sense, Khan. I really, really appreciate the question. I think this is going to be really important for a lot of people to hear, and maybe, you know, I can't believe I'm saying this. Well, actually I can, but maybe that means you don't subscribe to AskPat every day. Maybe you only check it once a week to see if specific question related to what you're doing are being answered. Or maybe you do subscribe to it, and unless it's related, unless an episode comes out that's related to whatever it is that you're doing now or it's a question that you're interested in hearing the answer to because you know it's going to be helpful, then maybe you shouldn't listen.

And you know, I'm really big on productivity this year. This is sort of my goal for this year to be as productive as I can be because I know I have so many things going on, and I can't waste time learning things I don't need to learn right now, and that's why I don't subscribe to so many podcasts and blogs, and I hope you can find value in this information that I'm sharing right now and these tips because I think some of you may have been following me for the last few weeks and following me on Facebook and Twitter and even on the blog. I am in a very, very big productivity kick right now, and so I'm giving this to you, this advice to you honestly because I think this is what is going to be the most helpful. If that means there's going to be less Pat Flynn in your life, then please, I just want you to actually make sure you get stuff from me or somebody that is going to help you progress. If you are simply listening or reading, you might as well be as good as somebody who doesn't even know how to read, right?

So unless you put the stuff into action, then you might as well not even learn how to read. You know what I mean? Hope that makes sense. That comes off of a quote I heard recently, although I don't remember where or what those exact words were, but that really struck me. It could have been a Mark Twain quote. I can't remember, but if you do remember, hook me up on Twitter. Use the hashtag #AskPat248 and let me know what you think. That's hashtag #AskPat248 for episode 248. Maybe you know where that particular quote comes from. But Khan, I want to thank you today for this question, and like I said in the beginning, an AskPat t-shirt is headed your way. I really appreciate it, and I appreciate all of you listening out there whether you listened for a long time or this is your first episode, and I hope and I know that I'm going to be able to provide you more information that's valuable to you in your business and what you have going on here on AskPat, on SmartPassiveIncome.com, my upcoming project with Chris Ducker at 1DayBB.com, and anywhere else you find Pat Flynn. I'm here to help you, so hopefully you'll stick around.

I appreciate you, and I also appreciate Lynda.com. One of the coolest sites out there, and something that I've been using a lot lately. I actually found a course recently on Screenflow to help teach me a few more things about that software which I use. I've also seen some new items in the new version of Photoshop which I'm paying attention to as well because that's sort of what I love to do, and I mean, there's a lot of things you can do on Lynda.com. There's productivity course. There's business writing courses. Grammar fundamentals. How to break out of a rut. I mean, you name it. There are over 3000 courses on topics like these that can help you and help your business here in 2015. So to sign up and get a free 10-day trial, unlimited access to every course on Lynda.com, head on over to Lynda.com/askpat.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you, and to finish off the day, here's a quote from Pablo Picasso. He says, “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan in which we must fervently believe and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”

Here's to you and your success in 2015. Got to put in the work, but put in the smart work. Do the work that matters. That's what this year's about for me, and I hope it's the same for you. Cheers, take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat.